Cold as Ice (16 page)

But she'd never been one to seek forgetfulness or release in sex. It always brought a brand-new set of problems, sometimes worse than the first, and he was right, for the last three years she'd been better off without.

Not that things could get much worse at this point. He was going to kill her—he'd made that more than clear, and there was no way out of it that she could see.

And the shameful, inescapable truth was that she was going to have sex with him. She might try to talk him out of it, talk herself out of it, but it was pretty much a foregone conclusion. She was going to make love with the man who was going to kill her. How sick was that?

But it wouldn't be making love. He would fuck her, and she would let him, just to prove a point. Not that he could make love to her and remain unmoved and uninvolved. Any man could do that.

But it would prove he wasn't as all-powerful as he thought. He used sex as a weapon, he'd said, but she was impervious. Even with a gentle, tender man who loved her, she seldom reached anything beyond a mild stirring of pleasure. She certainly wasn't about to start with her murderer, no matter how good he thought he was.

He pulled back, and she realized he was still rocking against her trapped hand, so slightly that she hadn't noticed, an imperceptible rhythm that thrummed through his body. And hers.

"You think I can't do it?" he whispered with the ghost of a laugh.

She'd forgotten he could read her so well, and her anger only fueled the cold fire in her belly.

"Can't do what? Seduce me? I don't think I have much say in the matter. You'll do what you want, with or without my cooperation. You just can't make me enjoy it."

"Yes," he said, "I can. Anyplace, anytime. We'll use your room."

She was too startled to react. The calm decision in his voice as he took her hand, the one that he'd held pressed against him, was unnerving as he drew her through the shadowy villa. She didn't resist, stepping out of the discarded caftan and following him. In the end, what would it matter? Things had been spiraling out of control for days now, and she kept fighting back. At least this was one battle she was sure to win.

He released her when they reached her darkened room. He turned on the
bathroom light, closing the door most of the way so that only a sliver
illuminated the room. He stripped off his shirt and threw it over the small
statue of the ballet dancer.

"I don't like cameras," he said, turning to her.

Somewhere she found her voice. "There's a camera in that thing? I guess it's not Degas after all."

"It probably is. Harry had no qualms about destroying irreplaceable works of art for his own use. There are cameras everywhere. Harry liked to know what was going on around him, and he never minded an audience himself."

"Why are you using the past tense? He's not already dead, is he?"

"Not as far as I know. I doubt Renaud would disobey my orders when it comes to something like that. Get on the bed."

He was as beautiful as she'd been afraid he was. Most Englishmen tended to be pale and skinny. Peter had tanned, golden skin and subtly defined muscles, and she already knew the feel of his warm, strong flesh.

"I can see why you use sex when other weapons fail you," she said. "You're very pretty—I would think women would have a hard time resisting you. And men," she added.

"It's not a last resort, Genevieve," he said. "Get on the bed," he repeated.

In fact, she was starting to feel a little exposed. She crossed the room to the king-size bed and slid beneath the six hundred thread-count sheets.

"No," he said, and stripped the covers off, tossing them out of reach on the floor. "Lie back."

What would he do if she tried to run? Would he come after her, hurt her? Or even worse, would he let her go?

She lay back against the pillows, and for once she was glad she couldn't see that clearly. She wished she were drunk, knocked out on pills, in some kind of place and time where panic didn't dance through her veins.

He moved to the side of the bed, reached under the mattress and pulled out the butcher knife, laying it on the mattress beside her. "Just in case you think you need it," he said. "Feel free to try."

"Is that what turns you on?" she said, unable to keep the anger from her voice.

"Don't be coy. You turn me on. And you know it."

"I could stab you."

"You could try. But I don't think you'll even remember there's a knife within reach. I don't think you'll want to do anything to stop me."

She reached out and took the knife, wrapping her fingers around the carved wooden handle. German steel—it would slice through flesh quite easily. His beautiful, golden flesh.

"Try me," she said, belligerent.

He walked over to the door, locking it, then turned to look at her from the foot of the massive bed. "I intend to."

She wasn't liking this, not one bit. She felt hot and cold all over, stretched out in lingerie that was meant to entice when that was the last thing she wanted. She forced herself to watch him as he stripped off the white linen, not looking away when she wanted to. She was uncomfortable looking at naked men, particularly aroused ones—in the past she usually tried to keep her eyes averted.

But she couldn't this time. He was beautiful—there was no denying it, and she wondered how that would affect her. The better looking the man, the more selfish his lovemaking, or so she'd discovered in her limited experience. If that held true, then Peter Jensen was going to be the worst lover she ever had.

"Very brave, Genevieve," he murmured, knowing her too well. "You'd much rather be blindfolded, wouldn't you?"

"I'm not that kinky."

"I don't know—you might be surprised."

He moved with such quick, lethal grace that she hadn't even realized he was coming, moving over her from the bottom of the bed, one hand gripping her wrist as she clutched the knife. He stretched over her, and she could feel him touching every part of her body—heated flesh against her pounding heart, his long, bare legs against her, erection at the juncture of her thighs, hard and full against her. His face hovered over hers, his mouth too close, and he looked cool and uninvolved.

"I thought you weren't afraid of the knife." She summoned up one last bit of resistance.

"It doesn't hurt to be careful," he said, bringing her wrist up to his mouth, kissing it. She could have turned the knife, slashed at him—he barely seemed to be using any strength at all to control her. "But you're not going to stab me, Genevieve. You know what you're going to do, whether you want to or not."

Her grip tightened on the knife automatically, and his hand tightened as well, so that her fingers felt numb. She wasn't going to answer him, since she had no answers.

The bra was nothing more than bits of lace and ribbon, and he unhooked it and pulled it away, then caught the thong bikini and simply tore it, so that she was naked, exposed beneath him. "That's better," he murmured. "It levels the playing field."

She closed her eyes, terrified, and she wasn't sure why. He wasn't going to hurt her—she'd be less frightened if that was what she expected. She summoned one last ounce of fight. "Just get it over with," she said. "I'm getting bored." Her breath caught in her throat, belying her cool words, but then, she hadn't really hoped to fool him.

"Yes, ma'am," he said. And without any warning he pulled her legs apart and pushed inside her with a suddenness that left her shocked and breathless.

Neither of them moved for a moment. "Now, why doesn't it surprise me that you're wet?" he murmured, looking down at her.

She struggled to find something, anything to say. She felt his strong hands on her legs, pulling them around his hips. She was clutching the sheet beneath her, and once he'd gotten her legs wrapped around him he prised her hands loose and placed them on his shoulders.

"I think you'd better hold on to me, Ms. Spenser. It's going to be quite a ride."

This wasn't going to work, she thought blindly. He'd barely kissed her, hadn't even touched her, he'd done nothing in terms of standard foreplay.

And yet she was wet. Aroused, in a way she'd never felt before. And he hadn't even moved.

"Don't look so stricken, sweetheart. You're supposed to like it." He pulled out, just a little, then sank back in again, a small shimmer of movement that left her gasping for breath.

"I don't want…" she said.

"Yes, you do."

Yes, she did. He began to move, slowly, too slowly, as if the only part of him involved was what was between his legs, between hers. She closed her eyes, trying to shut him out, but he was everywhere, on top of her, beneath her, inside her.

She told herself it didn't matter. He was just trying to make a point, trying to strip away anything she had left, but she could fight it, fight him, fight the slow, insidious buildup of response that was shimmering through her body. She caught her breath, a hoarse gasp that seemed to draw him in deeper, and she made the terrible mistake of opening her eyes.

He was bracing himself against the mattress, his hands on either side of her, and his icy blue eyes were open, staring down at her face with single-minded intensity as he kept up the steady, wicked rhythm, rocking, rocking, thick and full and deep.

"Come on, Ms. Spenser," he whispered. "Prove me wrong. You don't want to come with me inside you—you don't want me to have that satisfaction. You want to hold it back from me, don't you? Prove to me what an arrogant, conceited prick I am. You can withhold this part of yourself, can't you? You want to, don't you?"

How could he be doing this, with the slow, steady thrust of his cock inside her, his hands on the bed, not touching her, his voice teasing her with those soft, taunting words?

She couldn't answer him because she didn't know what he was asking her, why he was baiting her.

"Your nipples are hard, Ms. Spenser," he whispered, "and the room is warm. Why are your nipples hard?"

She closed her eyes again, trying to shut him out, but she slid her arms around his neck, pulling him closer, fully on top of her, body to body, not just the joining between them. He was hot, covered with a thin film of sweat, but his heartbeat was steady, unmoved.

Things were tumbling out of control. Her body was trembling and there was nothing she could do to stop it. He'd taken over, and her body no longer belonged to her. It was his, to do with what he liked. If she relaxed, that first wash of pleasure would happen, she knew it, and he'd be satisfied and leave her alone, but she couldn't do it. Couldn't let go. Couldn't, or wouldn't, give him that victory. The tension was rippling through her, and she clutched at him in desperation, her fingernails digging in, clawing at him, fighting for something just out of reach.

"Who's going to win, Ms. Spenser?" he whispered in her ear. "Your body or your mind?"

She could have answered that with no hesitation, but she'd lost her voice. He was moving faster now, and she was meeting his thrusts because she had to. His hands cupped her hips, pulling her up against him, so that he was deeper, deeper still, wet and slippery and hot and strong, and she wanted to cry out, but there was no sound, just a strangled gasp.

"I think you want to," he whispered, his voice soft and steady. "You're fighting it, but you want it. It's only a small death—nothing permanent. Give it to me, Genevieve. Give it to me now."

It shouldn't have been like that. It went through her like a bolt of lightning, an electric shock, and her body arched on the bed, her head flung back as she opened her mouth to scream.

He slapped his hand over her face to silence her, and she was gone, lost, as her body convulsed around him, an endless surge that kept moving, renewing, drowning. She couldn't breathe, and she bit down on his hand, hard, as her body dissolved into electric sparks that vanished in the night air, until there was nothing left at all.

She couldn't move. All she could do was lie there and breathe as she slowly began to drift back to this darkened bedroom, this rumpled bed, to the man on top of her, still inside her. Still hard. She blinked her eyes open, dazed.

He was looking down at her, his blue eyes cool and assessing, and he wasn't even breathing deeply. "Would you mind letting go of my hand?" he asked in the most polite of voices.

Her teeth were still clenched tight on his hand. She released him, shocked that she hadn't even realized what she was doing, shocked at the blood on his hand, the taste of his blood in her mouth.

He slid off her, lying on his side next to her, sweaty but seemingly unmoved. "I'm sorry, I didn't use a condom," he said. "I usually prefer not to leave a mess behind."

"Given the circumstances I hardly think it matters." Unfortunately it came out in a choked whisper, hardly the blasé tone she was searching for. That answered her question. She'd been so caught up in her own overpowering response that she wasn't even sure he'd bothered to finish. The wetness between her legs told her that he had.

She turned to look at him, and she put her hand on his chest, where his heart was supposed to be. Nothing but a calm, steady heartbeat. Her eyes met his, and he shrugged, and his slight smile was almost apologetic. "I warned you," he said.

"You did," she agreed, staring at him. The eyes were a window to the soul, they said, but in his case no one was home.

She managed to sit up, though she felt weak, shaky. She had to get away from him, even if it meant crawling across the floor. He'd climaxed, there was no question, but he was still hard. He hadn't let go completely, of course he hadn't. He'd proved his point magnificently—he could make her come and have only the mildest physical response.

She just didn't want him to prove it again.

"I'm going to the bathroom," she said. He couldn't very well object to that.

"You can't wash me away, Genny," he said in a soft voice, closing his eyes. "You'll never be able to, no matter how hard you try."

She didn't answer. There was nothing she could say, when she knew he was right. Had been right about everything.

She pulled the sheet from the pile of covers and wrapped it around her. Peter didn't move. He must have fallen asleep, a dubious sign that he might be human after all.